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Women Ask: Why Have We Been Getting as Little as 4% of VC Money?

Written by: Laura Kiesel09/05/13 - 7:00 AM EDT

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- It seems male investors like to give their money to other men -- even when the product is geared toward female consumers.

This became clear last month when entrepreneur and co-founder of popular sports website BleacherReport.com Bryan Goldberg caused an uproar when he announced the launch of a female-focused website, Bustle.com. The uproar was not so much caused by his encroachment on the terrain of women-themed sites, but because he claimed he was carving out new territory -- dismissing a slew of existing websites such as Jezebel, The Hairpin and Bust.

Adding to the collective ire was Goldberg's bragging at having been granted $6.5 million to launch Bustle, then offering to pay female staffers $100 a day for up to six posts, which translates to $26,000 a year, assuming the gig is full time. (The ads for these positions have been removed from the Web).

With $6.5 million, they could spiff up their own website and pay writers better -- much better than Goldberg seems willing to, they wrote.

That seems unlikely to happen; the vast majority of all investment money in the United States goes to male-led ventures. Specifically, only about 4% to 9% of venture capital funding goes to women, despite the fact that as of a decade ago, 28% of businesses were owned by women, employing more than 10 million people and generating $1.5 trillion in sales.